WAYLAND - In the aftermath of Marina Keegan’s death, Tracy Keegan of Wayland found herself searching through the wreckage of the car that held her daughter as it rolled over twice on Cape Cod’s Rte. 6.

She was looking for a laptop, the hard drive of which held some of the stories, poems, plays and essays for which 22-year-old Marina Keegan was already receiving attention.

"We have received (letters/emails) from people who have literally changed their lives after reading her words," said her father, Kevin Keegan. "People who left corporations to work for nonprofits, people who wanted to write and never got the courage to do it … it goes on and on, the people who have reached out to us and said, 'It’s because of the message that we received from reading Marina’s words.'"

In what they termed a "memorial service every day," the young writer’s parents scoured Keegan’s computer, then reached out to her college professors, high school teachers, and friends for the material that appears in "The Opposite of Loneliness," a 240-page book of Keegan's essays and stories that appeared in bookstores April 8.

"The whole thing has been humbling and inspiring and really incredible," Keegan’s Scribner publicist Kate Lloyd said. "I just thought that, here is this young woman who was just preternaturally mature and gifted, so incredibly self-possessed. I was very, very moved by her writing."

The introduction to the book is written by one of Keegan’s favorite professors at Yale, author Anne Fadiman.

"It was like hearing her speak again," Tracy Keegan remembered of looking through her daughter's writing, some of which she hadn't seen before. "She had such a distinct way of expressing herself that you really could hear her voice in some of her work. So it was like a gift, really."

Before her death, Marina Keegan’s writings had been published in The New York Times and her college newspaper, the Yale Daily News, and she was interviewed by NPR. A play of hers was in the works, and weeks before she died, she accepted a job at "The New Yorker."

"She certainly underscored that … the present is the time that you need to be embracing," Tracy Keegan said, "and she’s no longer here to do that, so I’m hoping that people will pick up her banner and march with it … into the future."

Though Keegan’s parents said their daughter felt she could reach more hearts and minds through her writing, she wasn’t a person to urge for action on paper alone, they said. Keegan organized phone banks for causes she believed in, set up tables to waylay students at Yale and encourage them to register to vote, and worked for the Obama campaign.

Page 2 of 2 - She investigated the interview process of finance consulting companies concerning college students, and stood up for same-sex marriage, immigration reform, and one time even child labor while dining in another country.

"We miss her, that's the bottom line," Kevin Keegan said. "We’re proud of … her ideas and what she turned out to be."

"She had found her bliss, as a writer," he added. "That was for a very, very short time … I’m very happy that she had that."

"The Opposite of Loneliness" may not be the last the public hears of Marina Keegan, her parents said. To share more of their daughter’s inspirational words, they hope to publish her poetry and plays in the future, though nothing is in the works as of yet.